Lightning Happens

Tossing a fast note up here while I can. (Knowing me, it’ll be longer than a short note.)

I almost posted this from my phone yesterday, but I couldn’t figure out WP on my phone. Then I almost posted it from my Kindle. WP on that is even worse for me to use. I wanted to let people who follow the blog know why nothing was coming up, even after my last post when I said things would be.

Why am I trying to post from these things? Well, I literally thought it’d be awhile before I got to post on WHR again. If ever.

Early Saturday morning, and by that, I mean around 2 AM, I was in my room bashing away on my computer doing my transcription work. We apparently got a storm, which I didn’t hear over the noise canceling headphones. I only realized it when it was right on top of my house.

I went about the process of shutting down my computer. It was really odd because it wouldn’t shut down. Thinking it needed a few minutes, I went into the living room. My parents and I were discussing how bad the lightning was. I came back into my room/office to see my computer still up. So I headed over, plopped my backside in the chair, and went about trying to shut it down… again.

Around that time, I glanced up and saw this huge flash of light outside my glass door. Then I heard the crack noise. I screamed. Every hair on my body stood up and it took me a good minute to realize I hadn’t been hit. It also registered with me that I heard my mom scream in the living room at the same time.

I booked it for the living room on shaky legs while asking if my parents were okay. Thankfully, we all were but you could smell something burning in the air. Either the particles or something had been hit. In the meantime, I’m telling my parents about the lighting hitting right outside my room, and they’re telling me about the FLAMES that came out of the TV after lightning hit on that side of the house too.

I’m not sure what happened still. If lightning just hit close to the house and caused a surge or what. The outcome of it was, that my tower WOULD NOT WORK. I still couldn’t get it to turn off… so I finally just hit the button because the lightning was still coming down. I unplugged it from the wall right after that.

About three hours later, I’m trying to get back to work, so I come to boot up my tower. It won’t come on. I don’t panic. I just unplug it again, and let it set. I used my mom’s laptop (which is on its last legs, let me tell you) to finish my transcript and do some more work. Still not panicking. Then I come back in here 5 hours later.

No processing in the tower at all. Nothing. It would turn on, and then nothing. Sat on a black screen and didn’t move. It just sat there.

This is the tower that has not only my work on it but WHR backup, my Etsy shop designs, everything. I’m just about to panic at this point. I wanted to cry, then I gave myself a talking to.

It could have been worse. The house could have caught fire. One of use could have been actually hit by that lightning. Seriously, the TV could have literally exploded and injured one or both of my parents… I mean, it had FLAMES SHOOT OUT OF IT.

Fast forward to today, five days later. My mom needed to print something and had no color ink. I said, “Just hook your laptop up to my printer. It still has color ink and it’ll work without the tower being on.” She comes in and proceeds to ask me 90 million questions about why it won’t work. Did I try this, did I try that… and folks, let me just say, I had tried EVERYTHING at that point.

I booted up the tower to show her, and because the only way to turn it off at that point, was to hit the surge protector, I left it running. Flipping that would have turned off the printer that mom was using. She got done, wandered off… I went to read a book.

An hour later, I’m laying on my bed, and something flashes out of the corner of my eye. I sat up so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. My tower had booted up. AN HOUR LATER, but it BOOTED UP.

I should totally insert a .gif here to show you all how I was dancing around my room. Biggest spazzed out excited happy dance ever. I probably looked like a flopping fish and I could care less.

Anyways, hang tight people! Things will be up ASAP. I also have to catch up on transcript work and I’m backing up everything to an external HD today, as well as putting things for the blog and my Etsy shop in Dropbox.

The best way to know what is currently going on is to check out the blog FB page at the moment. I can still access that from my phone if by some chance this comp goes down again. I honestly don’t know if it has damage or not. Also, eyes on my GR page as well, because it does get updated when I’ve read something.

HOPEFULLY, this means reviews are coming as soon as I can possibly get them up. I’m having massive withdraws from book chatter!